Design Notes

The Open Share icon conveys the act of sharing by visually representing one hand passing an object to another hand, as in "pass it on" or "sharing". The icon also represents an "eye", as in "look at this".

If you elect to use the icon, we require you to comply with any applicable Usage Guidelines. Your use of the icon will be considered to be your acknowledgment of your agreement to these conditions, as we may update them from time to time.

Note that as the creators of the Open Share Icon project, to avoid confusion only Shareaholic has the appropriate use of the icon as a primary application icon and logo (including a favicon).

Usage Guidelines

This website contains guidelines for use of the icon, and is published and maintained by Shareaholic as a service to -

the community of individuals and organizations wishing to use the Open Share Icon in connection with their own products and services and

members of the general public who use those products and services and rely on the standard meaning of the Open Share Icon as indicating shareable content, and the act of sharing.

We strongly believe in the value of open, and encouraging the healthy usage of the icon. As part of that, it is important for users to be able to trust the Open Share Icon and not be confused about the relationship with the many people and organizations who use the icon.

The icon is available for use in connection with content sharing, in all its forms. Shareable content may include blog posts, articles, photos, videos, etc. If you are developing or have developed a sharing related application, product or service, you may make use of the Open Share Icon to help foster standardization, recognition, and help promote a consistent icon for sharing on the web, but should refrain from using the Icon to establish branding (e.g. use within your application is allowed, but not use as your logo).

The spirit of these guidelines is to encourage adoption of the Open Share Icon by both individuals and corporate entities who may use it (on web pages, in products or services) for the purposes for which it is intended. It, or confusingly-similar variants, are not intended, for example, to be used as part of a trademark, service mark, logo, or in any other way that would imply to a casual observer that the icon was exclusively associated with a particular application or website. This includes not displaying the Icon as the most prominent element on your web page or web application.

In the interests of providing a consistent experience for users we suggest that providers of sharing and sharing related services make minimum use of alternative representations of the Open Share Icon.

Note that the above guidelines are not intended to restrict the ways in which the icon might be represented by assistive technologies designed for use by people with impaired vision. (Such technologies include software to magnify the contents of the screen and/or change screen colors, contrast, and brightness; alternative stylesheets for websites; and the like.)

Why publish usage guidelines?

We felt it was important that the icon "mean something" to people, particularly to end users who are just getting acquainted with the concept of sharing web content and might see the icon as a relatively reliable guide by which to discover content that is shareable, and the act of sharing in general. Taking a totally laissez faire approach might cause those users' expectations to be completely violated.

I don’t like green; can I use the icon in a different color?

We believe that the color of the icon is an important visual cue for people, and that arbitrarily changing the color could disrupt that cue and could confuse users. (Just as, for example, changing the standard colors used for road signs could confuse drivers.) We therefore recommend not changing the color of the icon when it is used in the context of sharing and its related products and services.

Design credit

The Open Share Icon is an initiative started and spearheaded by Shareaholic. The Icon itself was designed by Frank Dobbelaere, David Hall, Bruce McKenzie, and Jay Meattle which they designed based on the larger input of the community and donated to the project.

The guidelines and FAQs for the Open Share Icon are derived from the ones established by the Mozilla Foundation for the RSS Feed Icons. A big thank you to Mozilla.